The Braves Influence

USA Today released their list of the 50 most influential people in baseball (hat tip: Sabernomics). There are plenty of Braves and Braves-related folks who made the list.

John Schuerholz made the list at number 13, and was the top General Manger on the list. They don't necessarily tell us why they picked certain people at a particular spot; instead they just give a bio for most people. So we don't know why Schuerholz is more influential than Billy Beane, who comes in at 20 on the list or Terry Ryan who falls at number 24.

Hank Aaron makes the list at 27. Bobby Cox is the first and only Manager to make the list at number 42. Even I think Joe Torre and Tony LaRussa should have probably made the list.

In interesting addition to the top-50 was David Levy at number 25. Levy is president of Turner Sports, which has been historically Braves-centric but is now turning away from just covering the Braves to cover all of baseball. They will begin their baseball-wide coverage this post-season when they broadcast the NLCS. This article talks more about Levy, and contains this excerpt which should instantly excite us hardcore fans:

That might be a pretty cool feature. I do wonder how they might synch the online player cams with the possibly delayed cable feed. It would be pretty sweet to be watching the game and at the same time be able to choose several players to watch. This is especially cool for people with "favorite players" that might be playing that day.

There seems to be a lot that has not yet been tapped in the arena of online coverage of sporting events. Call it bonus coverage or augmented coverage, but this seems to be something that many networks could really take advantage of. Of course the players might not like a camera on them the whole time they're on the field and dipping and spitting and grabbing their crotch; or in the case of some, doctoring the ball. Nonetheless, I'd like to see them try it. It's a better idea than, say, what Fox tried to do with Hockey a decade ago.